Organizer    Sara B. Pritchard (Cornell University)
Chair        David E. Nye (Syddansk University)

Roundtable participants
Thomas Zeller (University of Maryland), “Landscapes of Envirotech.”
Sara B. Pritchard (Cornell University), “Envirotech Methods: Looking Back, Looking Beyond?”
Hugh S. Gorman (Michigan Technological University), “STS and the Co-Evolution of     Technology and Nature.”
Sylvia Hood Washington (UIC School of Public Health and Institute for Environmental Science
and Policy), “Reflections on the Integrative Historical Scholarship of Environment,     Technology and Health Disparities in America.”
Pat Munday, (Montana Tech), “STS and Environmental History as a Foundation for
Environmental Activism.”

Discussant    Edmund P. Russell, III (University of Virginia)

Panel abstract
Although technology is central to environmental history, and nature to science and technology studies (STS), these categories often remain implicit, not explicit.  Moreover, the two fields have forged less common ground than one might expect at first glance.  Scholars in STS and the social and historical studies of technology more specifically have tended to focus their analysis on the relationship between technology and society, technology and culture, or technology and politics while environmental historians have concentrated on the interaction between human and non-human nature.  In other words, there is a critical gap between the fields’ central categories of analysis.  Perhaps more importantly, their parallel intellectual paths may be due to their differing epistemological stances on science and nature.  Over the past decade, however, scholars have begun not only to place science, technology, and the environment at the center of their studies, but also to demonstrate how the interplay between technology and nature is critical to wider historical and conceptual issues in both fields.  While this work has begun to forge common ground, tensions between the fields do remain.

This roundtable aims to contribute to this emergent body of scholarship by examining some of its historical roots, questions, and approaches.  In short, it places the integration of STS and environmental history in historical perspective, examining some of the major historiographies, methodologies, and conceptual tools that have been developed thus far.  It also considers limits to and gaps in this work.  Finally, it studies the relevance of the fields’ intersection for not only scholars, but also historical (and hence contemporary) actors engaged in socio-ecological struggles.

This session seeks to complement the Envirotech “case study” panels proposed at the 2007 SHOT meeting, but it foregrounds conceptual, methodological, and analytic issues in historical perspective.  The panel thus develops one of the themes highlighted by this year’s Program Committee: historiography.  In particular, the first two session participants (Zeller and Pritchard) discuss how scholars on both sides of the Atlantic have thought about the intersection and interaction of “nature and technology.”  They analyze and assess the contributions (and limits) of these approaches while proposing some potentially fruitful alternatives.  Building on this work, Gorman maintains that STS methods have helped reframe work within the history of technology and environmental history, enabling scholars in these fields to move away from declentionist narratives of technology towards the possibilities of socio-environmental reform through technology.  The final two panelists, Washington and Munday, consider these issues in light of their relevance to historical and contemporary struggles over socio-environmental (in)equality.  Washington argues that environmental justice, including human health disparities should be central to work at the intersection of STS and environmental history while Munday asserts that elements of STS and environmental history offer environmental activists important tools for political mobilization.

Format
We propose a roundtable session based on shorter presentations with plenty of time for discussion across the papers and with the audience.  We have included five participants in order to incorporate a range of perspectives and approaches.  Each roundtable participant would have 10-12 minutes to present several key points.  After all of the panelists have made their remarks, our discussant would highlight some common themes and issues in order to jumpstart discussion.  Then the floor would be opened for general discussion among the panelists and audience members.  We hope that this format offers more of a “seminar” experience for those participating in and attending the session.

This session is sponsored by SHOT SIG Envirotech.